Our road to Dubrovnik started in Amsterdam, where Rudy and I boarded a KLM flight to Zagreb, in what used to be Yugoslavia, in the days of Tito. Our plan was to rent a car in Zagreb and drive through the Dinaric Alps to Dubrovnik, which is located on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. The Dinaric Alps are not anywhere as high as the Swiss Alps, but are a continuation of the Swiss Chain. Zagreb is now the Capitol of Croatia, very near the Slovenia boarder.
Since KLM was paying for renting the car, it was decided that I would drive, a decision that I should have given a little more attention to. The route took us through what is now Bosnia Herzegovina. I would have to say that I certainly had driven on better roads, as this one twisted and turned through the mountains. I have always considered myself a good driver, but these roads had no guard rails; on top of this, it was raining. The car would slip and slide, and we came close to a nasty drop into the valley below. Finally we came upon a roadside restaurant that didn't look too bad, (and I needed to get my breath back); I pulled in so we could get a bite to eat. Neither Rudy nor I spoke Croatian and this was a very modest, local restaurant. When we walked in, all conversation stopped, as the locals stared at this couple of tourists. We managed to get a menu, which unfortunately had no English or Dutch subtitles. We had no idea what we were ordering, so we just pointed to an item that looked like it was something we thought would sure suit our purpose.
Lesson number one: never order anything that you have no idea of what it is. It ended up that we had ordered wild boar head. The plate that was put before me was one half of a boar's head, complete with one ear and one eye, which seemed to stare at me. The ear still had hair on it. I have to give Rudy credit, because he ate his. I'm sure the cook probably enjoyed mine, as I just left it on my plate. We had changed some money in Zagreb, so we paid the amount shown on the menu, left a more than a generous tip, and took our leave. We heard a lot of laughter as the door closed behind us. Thankfully, Rudy agreed to take over the driving. I'm sure that I had given him some white hair on a few of the curves, when I was driving.
It was late afternoon, when we arrived just outside Dubrovnik, since you cannot drive into the city, we checked into a local hotel on the outskirts. I don't recall the name of the hotel, but I remember that it was modern and had no doubt been built after World War Two. I was happy to see that it was a hotel that catered to the international trade. We had single rooms that were very comfortable, and had dinner in the hotel restaurant, that had an English menu. Walking around the hotel after dinner I was surprised to see that it had a casino; the casino was owned by the owners of Hurrah's Club in Reno Nevada. I'll tell you more about that later, we retired early as we wanted to see the city in the morning.
Dubrovnik was a city built during the Middle Ages. We learned that it achieved a great deal of its growth and development in the 15th and 16th centuries, when it was a major seaport and a center of trade; it was walled, to protect it from the constant threats by the Ottoman Empire and by Venice. There is no vehicle traffic within the city; the narrow cobblestone streets are lined with small shops and many quaint open air restaurants, that serve wine and local liquor to patrons at small tables outdoors, and in tree lined squares. The town is built on a hill; some of the streets are quite steep, others lead down to the sea and the old fortresses. Rudy had chartered an Epirotiki Line cruise ship that would carry the Auto Owners group between Dubrovnik and Naples. The cruise would go down the Adriatic coast, around the boot of Italy, into Naples. We were not able to see the ship, as Dubrovnik was not a port where it regularly called, except when on a charter basis. After a full day of walking and exploring, we retired to the hotel. Rudy wanted to visit Sveti Stefan the following day as he was considering adding this historic city as a day trip for the group while they were in Dubrovnik.
Sveti Stefan lies south of Dubrovnik, on the central part of Montenegro Adriatic coast line. It is a small island with a 15th century fortified village named after Saint Stephen. It was built to defend against the Turks and eventually became a haven for pirates. The island coast line is only about 2 miles in length, but is connected by a narrow isthmus to the mainland. Nearby, on the mainland, there were two pink, sandy beaches. It was well worth the drive, and Rudy did include it as a day trip on the A. O. itinerary.
Back at the hotel, I found a note from someone at the casino who wanted to see me. I don't remember his name, but he was the Casino manager. I noted from the On the previous evening I had noticed that the casino was not very busy, and when I made my way to the meeting, there were only a handful of people at the tables. The manager was interested in why we were visiting the hotel, noting that I was with KLM. I told him it was an exploratory trip and that we were looking at the facilities with the possibility of bringing in some charter flights. At that point he wanted to know if I could promote gambling trips from the USA to the hotel and casino. If I could do that, he would pay me a commission of 25% of whatever amount of money the charter members lost. I was a little taken back by the offer, and told him that it was not anything I would be interested in doing, so he upped the offer to 50 %. I guess they were desperate to get players in that casino. I thanked him for his offer, but promoting that kind of business was not in my job description.
On the following day, Rudy and I drove back to Zagreb. We were to take a Yugoslavian Airline flight to Rome. That will be the next chapter of this saga.
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